Qi Lin Cao
Florida International University, FL·Neuroscience
Spinal cord injury causes paralysis and lasting disability, and no effective treatment exists. Much of the permanent damage happens after the initial trauma, during a phase called secondary injury.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
spinal cord injury
secondary injury
blood-spinal cord barrier
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2031
What they work on
- Determine how perivascular fibroblasts, support cells surrounding blood vessels, become activated and upregulate PI16 after cervical spinal cord injury, focusing on interferon-gamma signaling and fibrotic scar formation.
- Validate PI16's role in blood-spinal cord barrier permeability, immune cell infiltration, tissue damage and functional deficits after spinal cord injury, using PI16 knockout mice.
- Test whether a clinically translatable PI16-neutralizing antibody delivered after spinal cord injury reduces tissue loss and promotes functional recovery.
More about the research
A key event is breakdown of the blood-spinal cord barrier, the protective seal between blood vessels and spinal tissue. When it leaks, immune cells from the blood pour in, inflammation intensifies, and more tissue dies. No current therapy protects this barrier, which makes it an attractive target.
Why it matters
People with spinal cord injury often face paralysis and sharply reduced quality of life with no effective therapy. If PI16 proves to drive barrier damage, a PI16-neutralizing antibody could become a new neuroprotective treatment that limits tissue loss and supports functional recovery after injury.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
George Smith
Temple University, PA·Neuroscience
Test whether a human CD59–Thy1.1 GPI-anchor chimera, activated by the bacterial toxin intermedilysin, selectively cuts corticospinal tract axons while sparing neighboring neurons and pathways, using histology of immune response, gliosis and myelination.
Sina Pourtaheri
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Biomedical Engineering
Synthesize a double-encapsulation system, des-n(NGFp), in which nanocapsules carrying a painless nerve growth factor variant are entrapped within double emulsions to control release kinetics.
Phillip Popovich
Ohio State University, OH·Neuroscience
Test the overall hypothesis that dysautonomia after spinal cord injury — lost sympathetic tone plus aberrant spinal autonomic reflexes — breaks neuro-immune homeostasis and produces a chronic state of "neurogenic meta-inflammation."
The school
Florida International University: 9 labs on PI Pages, $326M a year on research, 264 research doctorates a year.
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